


Treats and Trickery

by misura



Category: Charlie Parker - John Connolly
Genre: Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About a trick-or-treat expedition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treats and Trickery

"What - want me to mug a few kids instead?" Angel asked. If he sounded annoyed, it was more likely due to the fact that he was only now discovering the difficulty of working on straps while wearing catpaws than due to anything Louis had said or done in the past five minutes, given that Louis had neither said nor done anything in the past five minutes.

That, in itself, might be considered an example of 'action speaking louder than words', of course, but Angel was a reborn optimist. Very few good things had ever happened to him by accident until he'd met Louis (which arguably had been a _very_ good thing to happen, except for such small details as the when, where and while doing what) and so, he reasoned, he was long overdue.

"You wouldn't," Louis said.

Angel knew that once upon a time, he would have. Then again, once upon a time, he'd lived in a neighborhood where any kid with a bunch of quality candy was unlikely to have gotten by it by dressing up in a funny costume and politely asking. Without, say, also holding up a gun while doing so.

"No." The ears were a pain to put on, too. He really should have saved the paws until last - something to keep in mind for the future. Plus, what was he supposed to do with his real ears?

Maybe he should go as an elf next year: no gloves, and no extra pair of ears to deal with. Assuming that Louis wouldn't drag him off to a hotel in the middle of nowhere, naturally; Angel was aware he was walking on thin ice here. "How do I look?" seemed a safer question than: "What do you think?"

Louis slowly looked him over. "A kitten?"

Angel wondered what had given it away: the ears, the paws, the tail or the whiskers.

"Cat burglar," he corrected. Louis failed to react. "You know: civilized, with a hint of debauchery."

"Debauchery. Ah. Wondered at the stains."

Angel frowned. "Stains? What stains? Suit's perfectly clean."

"For now," Louis agreed placidly.

"You wouldn't." Angel liked to dress comfortably, but to Louis, clothes were like guns: you got the highest quality available and then you took damn good care of them. Because they were _important_.

"This is something for kids." Louis didn't say 'rich kids'. Really rich kids probably didn't bother with trick-or-treating. This was a holiday for the middle class.

Well, the middle class and one very determined cat burglar. "Age is in the eye of the beholder."

"Such as whomever will open the door, 'specting to see some kid whose parents they meet every week at the gardening club."

"There a gardening club in this neighborhood?"

Louis made no reply.

"Fairly certain the person whose doorbell I'll be ringing won't be no member of any gardening club."

For the first time that night, Louis smiled. Then he frowned. "Only candy we've got is yours already."

"This first year, think I might be willing to settle for treats of a non-candy nature."

"Lot of work," Louis said, leaving off the 'just to get laid' part.

"Taking it off will be, too. Help would be welcome." As far as hints went, that one barely deserved the word anymore. Louis was a good listener and a smart man. Beauty and brains, and occasionally entirely too aware of it, but then, nobody was perfect, and if someone had been, Angel was fairly sure he wouldn't have wanted them for a partner. _He_ sure wasn't perfect.

"No." Louis shook his head, reached for his coat. "Shop on Forty-second should still be open - I'll go there. Shouldn't take me no longer than ten minutes."

"Look," Angel said, "you don't - "

"We going to do this, we going to do this _properly_ ," Louis said firmly.

Angel tried to tell himself that, really, this had been the masterplan all along.

(It was a very long, very _lonely_ ten minutes.)

(Worth the wait, though.)


End file.
